Commission Expected To Raise M.P.s’ Pay

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28987, 31 August 1959, Page 10

Commission Expected To Raise M.P.s’ Pay

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, August 30. Monday, August 31, is the last day for the Royal Commission on Parliamentary Salaries to report to the Governor-General (Lord Cobham). The Commission held its final meetings in Wellington last week.

After the Governor-General receives the report it will be presented to the House of Representatives. Questioned last week, the Prime Minister (Mr Nash) gave no indication when this was likely to be.

Political observers are speculating whether the Commission’s report will be published before or after the Arbitration Court’s decision on the application for a general wage increase, for it is widely expected that the Commission will raise Parliamentary salaries, which were last increased in 1955.

The commission is headed by a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr Robert McKeen. Other members are Sir Matthew Oram, who was the Speaker under the* National Government, and Mr C. V. Smith, a prominent Dunedin businessman and author of the best-seller “From N to Z.”

Last year’s Salaries Commission did not recommend any salary increase in view of the “present serious financial difficulties facing New Zealand.” But, it felt members might suffer hardship if another Commission was not set up till after the next General Election, so it recommended that the position be reviewed this year. At present, the Prime Minister gets £3750, with a £l5OO allowance, and Cabinet Ministers get £2500, with a £550 allowance. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Holyoake) gets £1950, with a £490 allowance and £215 travel allowance.

The Speaker (Mr Macfarlane) gets £1950, with a £6OO allowance, and the Chairman of CommitteeS (Mr R. A. Keeling) £1575, with a £5OO allowance.

Members of Parliament get £llOO, with allowances ranging from £275 to £705, depending on the size of their electorates. Out-of-Wellington members also get £165 for board while Parliament is sitting. Several Labour members are reported to have made submissions to this year’s commission. The commission is also reported to have had submissions from a National Party caucus sub-com-mittee.

Last year, the Commission had evidence from Mr Nash, the Minister of Finance (Mr Nordmeyer), Mr Holyoake, the chairman of the Public Service Commission (Mr L. A. Atkinson), the secretary to the Treasury (Mr E. L. Greensmith), and the Government Statistician (Mr J. V. T. Baker). Two prominent party members recently advocated pay rises for Parliamentarians.

The Minister of Industries and Commerce (Mr Holloway) told the Wellington Junior Chamber of Commerce: "I believe, irres-

pective of the fact that I am a member of Parliament, that New Zealand treats its members shabbily.” The Dominion president of the National Party (Mr A. McKenzie) said: “Government % is big business and we have to'pay members in that light. I think £lBOO wouldn’t be too much.” Whatever the commission’s recommendations, its chairman is unlikely to face the same threat as Sir Frank Richardson, chairman of the Australian Salaries Committee. After Sir Frank Richardson’s committee, earlier this year, recommended pay rises for Australian Federal politicians he was threatened with the bombing of his home in Melbourne. But the New Zealand Commission’s recommendations are unlikely to approach the Richardson committee’s —£3850 for backbenchers and £14,350 for the Prime Minister.